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February 17, 2015

Should You Be Drinking Milk?

Milk is the drink your parents pushed on you, and for good reason: It's a fantastic source of protein. It's full of calcium and vitamin D, which help keep your bones and teeth strong. Plus, it has choline—a protein important for the brain—and potassium, which helps protect the heart. What's not to love?

Well, a few things. In recent years, some nutrition scientists have voiced concerns that milk may not deserve its sterling reputation, because people who drink milk aren't always healthier than people who don't. "The evidence and data for all of milk's benefits just are not there," says Walter Willett, PhD, chair of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. Worse, some new research—all of it preliminary, none of it definitive—suggests that drinking too much milk could pose health risks.

Cow's milk is full of hormones that help calves grow—one study estimates that 60 to 80 percent of the female hormones we get from our food comes from cow's milk. That includes the hormone IGF-1, which induces cells to multiply—potentially a bad thing considering that excessive cell multiplication is a hallmark of cancer, says Michael Pollak, MD, director of the division of cancer prevention at McGill University.

Women who drink more than two glasses of milk a day are twice as likely to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer than women who rarely drink it, according to a Swedish study. And research recently published in the British Medical Journal found that women who drink three or more glasses of milk per day are nearly twice as likely than non-milk- drinkers to die over the course of 20 years from any cause.

But don't hyperventilate just yet, milk fanatics. Dr. Pollak notes the IGF-1 increase you get from milk "is a small effect" and may not make a huge difference to your overall cancer risk. There are studies that tie milk to a lower risk of cancer too—for instance, one found that older women who drink a lot of milk have a reduced risk for breast cancer. And because milk drinkers may do other things that put them at an increased risk for cancer, it's impossible to say milk causes the issues that have been linked to its consumption.

The problem is that no one knows exactly how many of the hormones from milk actually get into your body, because digestion breaks some of them down. And it's unclear whether concerns raised about milk apply to other dairy products too. Until we know more about the potential health risks, Willett recommends drinking no more than one to two glasses of milk a day (don't forget to count your latte) and sticking to skim, as it contains fewer hormones than whole. Kids can have a bit more because they have different nutritional requirements for growth, including calcium.

Don't feel like you have to pay up for organic, which doesn't have lower levels of sex hormones than the conventional kind. Instead, check the label for milk produced without growth hormones, whose use in farming may contribute to the crisis of antibiotic resistance, or swap in some of the non-cow's-milk options below. "Milk is very nutritious, yes," says Dr. Pollak, "but that doesn't mean the more we drink, the better. You can have too much of a good thing."

Alterna-MilksAlmond Milk
(30 calories, 2.5 g fat*)
It's low in fat and calories and high in calcium, vitamin E....and sugar.
Try it: Rich and creamy, use it in smoothies and coffee. *All counts are per cup.

Camel Milk
(110 calories, 4.5 g fat)
This trendy option delivers 10 times more iron and 3 times more vitamin C than its bovine alternative.
Try it: Use this sweet milk for sauces and batters

Soy Milk
(100 calories, 3.5 g fat)
Soy is thought to help halt heart disease, but some studies say too much may adversely affect fertility.
Try it: Thicken soup by stirring in the plain kind.Rice Milk
(120 calories, 2.5 g fat)
Got allergies? This has no lactose, nuts, or soy.
Try it: Like a light, super- thin version of cow's milk, use in oatmeal or cereal